Sara Richmond Faison Hart, age 100, died peacefully on December 12, 2025, at the Hospice Care Center in Port Orange, Florida. For most of her life, she avoided disclosing her age. When people started gushing over how incredible she looked at 100, that changed.

The secret to her longevity – good genes; Her father, William Alexander Faison, lived to 98. Her mother, Miriam Ellison Faison Sproul, lived to 94.  Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on January 25, 1925, she was the fourth of five siblings – Miriam (Midgie) Faison Fabbri, Marjorie (Tiny) Faison Wilson, William (Bill) Faison and Thomas E. (Tommy) Faison.  They remained close their entire lives.

Sara moved to New York City in 1944, age 19, and spent her early twenties in various secretarial jobs, making lifelong friendships and continuing her self-education.  She read widely, fiction and non-fiction, and started every day devouring the New York Times and the local paper right up until her death.  She was a lifelong learner, always curious, always open to new ideas and new ways of looking at the world.  And thus, she found herself in a public speaking class at the New School in Manhattan because, "Why not?"  There she met her future husband, William B. (Bud) Hart.   He was thirteen years her senior, a graduate of Dartmouth College and established as the fiction editor on a national magazine.   The fact that she landed a 110 lb. sailfish on their Acapulco honeymoon while he managed only an 8 lb. mackerel foreshadowed her more than holding her own in this marriage. They were together for 47 years before his death in 1997.  They had two sons, William B (Will) Hart Jr. and E. Kirke Hart, and left their beloved apartment on West 11st for the kid friendly spaces of Larchmont, a suburb in which newspaper, magazine, tv and advertising workers were over-represented.    Their house became a social hub for their friends from the city, the neighborhood and of course their family.  They were each great cooks and their dinner parties and holiday spreads at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas fed multitudes.   But what they loved most was travel: England, Scotland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico, Canada, Haiti and of course the United States. In fact, they were in Cuba days before Castro took over and Afghanistan weeks before the Soviet invasion.  Suspicious?  Our lips are sealed.

Bud and Sara moved to Ormond Beach in 1981.  Their New York friends came to visit, and new Florida friends welcomed them in.  They kept busy, continuing to travel, and joined a variety of local organizations and clubs.  Sara became an officer of the Daytona Beach Symphony Society and the Ormond Art League.  All her life, Sara made friends easily.  She loved to laugh, loved a witty comment and loved to learn from the people she met.  She also deeply loved her family and her family heritage.  She was a proud Colonial Dame, while being a deep blue Democrat, and a literal card-carrying member of the ACLU and Amnesty International.

Sara will be interred at Mount Albion Cemetery in Albion, NY in a private service.  Raise a toast in loving remembrance.